Biography
b. 1985, Ife, Nigeria
EDUCATION
2012 MFA, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA
2008 BA, University of Alabama in Huntsville
2007 Yale University, Norfolk Summer School of Music & Art, Norfolk, CT
RESIDENCIES
2012 Tamarind Institute
Flying Horse Editions
AWARDS & GRANTS
2011 Murphy and Cadogan Fellowship in the Fine Arts, The San Francisco Foundation.
2010 Merit Scholarship, California College of the Arts
2008 Erzulie Veasey Johnson Painting & Drawing Award, University of Alabama in Huntsville
2007 Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship Grant, Yale University (Yale/Norfolk).
COLLECTIONS
Birmingham Museum of Art, AL
The National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI
Peggy Cooper Cafritz
PUBLICATIONS
2012 Alphabet: A Selected Index of Anecdotes and Drawings by Toyin Odutola
STATEMENT OF METHODOLOGY
"Where some may see flat, static narratives, I see a spectrum of tonal gradations and realities. What I am creating is literally black portraiture with ballpoint pen ink. I'm looking for that in-between state in an individual where the overarching definition is lost. Skin as geography is the terrain I expand by emphasizing the specificity of blackness, where an individual’s subjectivity, various realities and experiences can be drawn onto the diverse topography of the epidermis. From there, the possibilities of portraying a fully-fledged person are endless."